


Maat Kheru

by kayura_sanada



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: (You Know... Like the Show Does), (of a sort), Fix-It, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Manipulation and Destruction of Ancient Egyptian Mythology, Puzzles, Reunion, Soul Bond, The MCD is Canon, Usage of Japanese Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 21:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10930026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayura_sanada/pseuds/kayura_sanada
Summary: Atem's been gone for a while now, having moved on to the afterlife with his old friends and enjoying the rest he so clearly deserved. But Yugi and his friends had yet to fully move on themselves, and now there's a threat following Yugi around, an Egyptian one, and without Atem, neither he nor his friends have any idea why the threat lingers - or what they're supposed to do about it.Part of my 15 Untold Loves self-challenge.





	Maat Kheru

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not joking when I say I've scrambled the Ancient Egyptian myths. I hope you enjoy, anyway!

The pyramid was empty now.

It had no longer carried the small warmth that he’d felt even before realizing there was a soul residing within; it was nothing more than an expensive artifact now, resting once more within the stone it had come from.

He should be happy with what he’d had. The soul of a man 3000 years dead, his body turned to mummified dust long before Yugi had ever managed to find him and piece the fragments of him back together. They’d managed to change each other’s lives, their hearts, in a way that would have never happened if he’d never solved the puzzle.

It wasn’t in him to regret, or to wish he’d never started down this path. Meeting Yami had been the best thing to ever happen to him.

Which was the problem. They’d rested, returned from Egypt, prepared for school and, soon, college. Time had passed since they’d returned, yet all he could think about was what he’d lost. He and his friends found themselves silent at odd moments, each of them waiting for a voice, a presence, that never showed. The silence was almost as bad as the end of their awkward pauses, as they moved on from the silence, the expectation. From whom they’d lost.

Yugi feared that, if he moved on, the world would simply forget.

So even though he told himself, as he did every night, that he would put the memories away where they belonged, that he would let the puzzle be just a puzzle, still his fingers reached up to curl around something that no longer weighed upon his chest. Something outside his window cawed, its call like that of the damned. His neck felt uncomfortably light.

* * *

 He walked to school by rote, his mind far from the finals he walked toward. Jounouchi caught up to him, and Yugi found himself pulled into talk of a dueling competition coming up in a few weeks. Jounouchi had entered, while Yugi – thanks to Kaiba – had been entered without doing anything more than existing. Yugi gave Jounouchi his good wishes, and suddenly they were talking about the newest contenders.

Jounouchi hoped to use his skills as a duelist as his occupation, and had said as much several times, loudly, whenever their teachers had brought up the oncoming tests. Yugi had kept silent on his own dreams.

For him, he would never be over Egypt or the lost people he’d found there.

Jounouchi wrapped an arm around his shoulders and leaned into him. For a moment, just over his friend’s unruly curls, Yugi thought he saw someone standing on the other side of the street, watching them. After their stint in Ancient Egypt, Yugi instantly recognized the skin of those grown and raised in the desert. His heart skipped a beat. He leaned behind his friend to see better, but he saw nothing. No one stood watching them.

That part of the world no longer touched him. He had nothing more to do with those people, so long lost the rest of the world didn’t even know their names. There was no point searching for something that wouldn’t be found.

He turned back to Jounouchi and smiled. “So how much did you study last night?”

“Last night?” His friend groaned. “Plenty! Before last night? Not at all.”

Yugi laughed and patted his friend on the back. “We’ve studied together! Just try to remember that.”

But they hadn’t studied much since their return from Egypt, and every time they did, they remembered the one who was no longer there. Yugi forced his mind clear of the memories for the moment, knowing it wasn’t the time for it. Jounouchi stressed was still better than Jounouchi sad.

Still, they fell into that horrible silence anyway, and Yugi couldn’t begin to find a way out. Only Anzu’s appearance, and the hideous squawking of a terribly loud bird, broke the cacophony of quiet, and even that felt as forced as Yugi’s laughter.

* * *

 He sighed and stretched. Finals were over, at least for the day, and the day was bright and warm outside the school window. He looked out. The sky was bright blue, heady with the scents of grass and blossoming flowers. He moved to the window, looked down upon the school practice field, and saw several students working off their troubles on the soccer field. It made him think of the day Jounouchi and Honda had stolen a piece of the puzzle, back when he’d refused to go to a game because he would simply make his team lose.

Even now, knowing what he did and how it would end, he would still, if given the chance, do it all over again. What was the point of living a lonely life? Of not knowing the friendships he could make, or the one person who would act as catalyst for it all? The puzzle’s box had promised to give him dark wisdom and strength. Perhaps this loss, this depression, this emptiness inside of him was yet another instance of that dark wisdom, even more than the shadow games. And more than the protection Yami – Atem – had given him those first weeks after he’d completed the puzzle, the strength of courage and will that had become a part of him was what he would carry of Atem for the rest of his life.

It didn’t change how empty he felt inside, that wide expanse in his mind, his soul, empty now. He shivered and leaned against the windowsill.

There would be a day when the hurt would fade. Not go away – he doubted it could ever leave, for any of them. But it would become something that ached more like the memory of a scar instead of the wound itself. He knew, because he knew the feeling of losing his parents. He would go days, sometimes weeks, without the reminder of what he’d lost. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he might even go months. And then, when the pain of it struck, it would throb in the back of his mind like the tearing of cloth, seams well-patched ripped open once more. When the time came for the loss of Atem to feel like that, would he remember the feel of the maze around him? Would he remember the startling red of Atem’s eyes? Would he remember just how it had felt to be wrapped up in the man’s soul, to feel his presence like a tangible thing, sheltering him from his fears? Would he remember the soft, happy smile whenever he or the others showed their friendship to him?

He leaned his head against the glass and told himself it might be better to let those fade, as well. If they didn’t, he doubted the pain ever would, either.

There.

He saw it again, the flash of a dark face and white clothing, standing on the edge of the soccer field. She looked like Ishizu. Yet, as soon as he focused on her, she was once again gone, vanished as if into thin air.

He sat up. One instance could be counted as a trick of light, or a desire strong enough to seem real. Twice meant there was actually something going on.

A small hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up to find Anzu staring at him. She gave him a small smile. “Yugi.”

She had likely only seen him staring out into the distance. Still, he grabbed her hand and pulled her from the window. She made a startled sound, but followed after, her balance so great she almost seemed to twirl as he yanked her back. He watched the window, ready for a burst of light, or a spell, or something. There should be no reason, or even ability, for such things anymore, but he knew better than to think himself safe. “There’s someone out there,” he told her. Anzu’s spine straightened.

“You mean… something to do with him?”

Her voice sounded unsure. She had to think he might have imagined it, might have thought he’d seen something simply to pretend things weren’t over. He stared at her. “I didn’t think so, not at first. I saw something this morning and dismissed it. I thought...” Thought as she did, he couldn’t make himself say. Still, she understood.

The classroom was nearly empty; they didn’t go to the greatest school, and most students didn’t linger once it was time to go. The couple who had stayed stared at them, snickered, and pretended to give them privacy. They did, however, conveniently bump into several desks and chairs, attempting to ruin a moment that wasn’t happening.

“You saw them again just now, though,” Anzu said, and there was now a certainty to her voice. “Who? How many?”

“Just one. A woman, I think.” He frowned. “Could it be Ishizu? Why would she hide?”

“Where are Jounouchi and Honda?” She looked around. “And Bakura. He shouldn’t be alone if...”

If his other self was back? That wasn’t any more likely than the idea of Yugi’s own other self returning. Still, the idea of all of them banding together against this potential threat helped settle the nerves that kept screeching that he needed his other half for this.

He’d fought that battle against Atem to free him, to show him he no longer needed to be protected by him. It was to give Atem the chance to rest, the eternal end that he’d been waiting for for over 3000 years. To cry out for him, even only in his own mind, the first instant something went south, was to negate that last moment between them. He steeled himself. “Let’s find them.”

Jounouchi and Honda were easy to find; they were waiting by the steps, both of them trying to find out each others’ answers to the test questions to see how horribly they’d failed. Both looked up and grinned when they saw Yugi and Anzu. “Hey!” they said. Jounouchi waved as if to flag them down. Honda simply lifted his hand and smiled. “I take it you guys didn’t do well, either?”

Anzu huffed. “Don’t confuse us with you.” She glanced around, then said, “Yugi’s seen someone. Like from our past.”

She gave them a meaningful stare, even though it was completely unnecessary. Both men turned wide eyes Yugi’s way. He hunched. A couple of students raced past them, just as a teacher shouted angrily from far down the hall. “Where’s Ryo?”

“Probably studying,” Jounouchi said, pouting. “He probably did much better than us today.”

Yugi shook his head, but couldn’t help the grin. “In the library, then.” Ryo never went home if he could help it. They headed down the stairs and across the hall, unsurprised to find Ryo exactly where they’d expected, his head buried in two books at once. He looked up as they came up to his table, blinking at their show of force, their bodies shielding him from the rest of the room.

Their explanation had Ryo momentarily blanching, but he accepted their offer of help and stayed close to them. Unlike Yugi, Ryo had no impulse to reach for his artifact. The man had given it over with obvious relief. Yugi had been the last to return his artifact to its stone. Ryo sent him a single look, then calmed. He touched Yugi’s arm. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it together,” the man said. The two of them understood the feeling of another within them, despite their differences. Both of them felt pain at this reminder of what they’d thought was long over. It brought both comfort, and they stuck close together as they headed toward where Yugi had last seen his abnormal stalker.

The soccer field was still busy, even though they had another day of finals waiting for them tomorrow. It took some effort to get across without getting caught up in the game or the less kind students more likely to antagonize than let them by. Honda and Jounouchi dealt with those while Anzu demanded a path around. But when they reached the area Yugi pointed out, no one stood nearby. They did, however, see a few patches where heels had stabbed through grass into the dirt. “Now what?” Ryo asked.

“Now we look the hard way,” Jounouchi said, scowling. “And if this chick means to hurt Yugi, I’mma give her a piece of my mind!” He punched his fist.

Honda placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. “How about we just find her first?”

And so they took off, first meandering their way back to the main road, thinking to see the person on Yugi’s path home, then heading back and searching the nearby streets, the path to Kaiba’s home, even the busy roads and the subway. Nothing. Still, Jounouchi and Honda insisted on accompanying Ryo, Anzu, and finally Yugi back to their homes. Yugi waved goodbye and headed inside, greeting his grandfather before helping straighten the store. If there was someone watching, they wanted to stay away for a while. That was fine with him. He had finals. Real life. Modern day problems. He almost threw himself at them now, putting everything in order and sweeping the floor without having to be asked. His grandfather kept up a steady stream of commentary, as he always did these days. Yugi told him about what he’d seen, and that lasted them until the topic took them too close to memories. Then, it fell on his grandpa to change the subject, with an odd grace that showed the man’s hidden wisdom.

Yugi tired himself out physically, then, after supper, studied until his eyes strained from trying to read. It was past midnight when he finally let himself sleep, and he still ended up dreaming of a steady presence filling up the empty places in his heart.

* * *

 Though both Yugi and Ryo saw the shape again the next morning, a chase gave them nothing but another dead end, and they were forced to go about their finals week with nothing to show for their paranoia but lost sleep and slipping grades. Yugi called Ishizu on the second day, only to learn she had no idea who it could be. He should have known that; without the eye, she had no ability to see the things she usually saw. She offered to come see him, but he’d declined. Her place was with her brother.

As usual, Yugi waved goodbye to Honda and Jounouchi as they dropped him off at the doorstep of the game shop. He hesitated before walking in, instead taking a moment to watch his friends as they walked off, bantering with one another and pushing each other slightly. It ended, predictably, with Honda smirking down at Jounouchi and Jounouchi demanding a rematch in the form of a duel. Yugi shook his head and stepped inside once more.

The week was over, the weekend and graduation – if they all graduated – upon them. After graduation, what would happen to them all? Jounouchi was headed to the newest dueling competition, not even bothering with college. Honda was headed to the nearby college, though he had no idea what he was going to enroll in, and Anzu had already filled in several applications at dance schools. Yugi had accepted placement on an archaeology track in Tokyo that promised on-site experience.

They were about to go their separate ways. And, though, he knew they would keep in touch, it felt a little like he was losing what he’d given Atem up for.

He went through the motions of straightening up the store, but his heart wasn’t in it. After nearly an hour of getting only monosyllabic responses out of him, his grandpa sent him out to sweep the steps. He took the broom outside, his thoughts nipping at each other. It wouldn’t be as bad as all that. They could still visit each other when possible, keep in touch through e-mail and Skype and phone. They would always be a part of each others’ lives. It was simply the pain he still carried making him think the worst. He knew the agony of never seeing someone he loved ever again.

He put the broom to work, forcibly shaking that last thought from his head. That last night, he’d stood before the door to Atem’s soul, everything burning in him to speak to the man one last time. To say the words they’d never needed to say, because there had been such an easy, simple understanding between them. When one shared one’s soul with another, it was impossible to keep secrets. He had no doubt Atem had known. No doubt, even that the ancient spirit had felt the same. But what would have been the point of bringing it up that last night? There had been nothing for it but to leave it behind, unspoken between them lest it destroy the pharaoh’s chance for a peaceful rest.

So he had held those feelings inside, kept them from forming on his lips. He’d thought the love simple. He still believed it was: something nearly instinctive, one soul matching perfectly with another. But something as powerful as that should never have the word ‘simple’ attached to it.

He nearly swept the bristles of the broom over the bird before he noticed. He jumped at the hideous shriek it gave him before flying off. His heart pounded. The thing had scared him so much he’d thought he’d seen a human head on the damn thing.

The odd sight wasn’t normal for him, and he had just enough time to be wary of what it could mean before the shape of the now-familiar woman stepped onto the porch. The bird sat on her shoulder, its wings lifted just enough to hide its head. Her eyes, dead black, stared into him.

She couldn’t do anything here. Even though the shop wasn’t the busiest place, the street was never completely empty so long as the sun was up. If she tried to attack, it would do nothing but call attention to her. And if she wanted a duel, then she was vastly underestimating him.

She tilted her head, looked him up and down. He tensed when she lifted her hand, but all she did was finger the large scarab pendant clasping her robe closed. A couple of girls passed them, giggling. An older man entered the shop, a wide grin on his face as he saw the woman Yugi stood with. He waved as he went inside.

“Who are you?” he asked when the regular was out of earshot. The woman didn’t speak. Could she? He looked at the bird. It _was_ a human head – he could make out no beak. But as soon as he looked at it, it took off again. The woman stepped forward, close enough to touch. He couldn’t help the tension in him. The woman had yet to speak a single word. Instead she held up her hand. On her right palm was engraved the symbol, once again, of the scarab. Yugi frowned. He’d done a lot of research, both before and after their trip to the past. He’d studied Ancient Egypt like never before, even though it was too late to help Atem. The memory of not being able to read Atem’s name scorched him even now. But even without that memory, he had a feeling he would always be obsessed with Ancient Egypt now. Obsessed with the idea of somehow keeping Atem and his world alive.

His heart sprang with hope, so sudden and horrible it stole his breath. He hurried to her side. “Those scarabs. That bird. Could it be…?” He scarcely dared believe. He told himself to calm down, that what he was seeing couldn’t be what he wanted. It couldn’t be, and it certainly couldn’t be so simple.

Scarabs meant rebirth. The ba, or part of a person’s soul, was said to fly free from the body after death, in the shape of a bird with a human’s head.

The woman turned as if to leave, and suddenly the idea of her getting away sent his heart tearing through his lungs like splinters. He grabbed her arm. The broom dropped to the ground with a clatter. “Wait.” She looked at him, then his hand. He quickly let go, even as he wondered why he did so. Her eyes really were black, even the sclera. He took a deep breath. “Do you know...” He wondered if it was safe to say his name, even now when no one but his friends remembered him. His gaze flittered over to the bird, now sitting on the branch of a lonely tree, its head carefully turned away. “Could that be...”

The woman turned away once more. Could she truly not speak? He trailed after her, and she did not protest.

They took no specific path that he could see; she walked around the block several times, her gaze fixing on one person, then another, her hood crinkling slightly as she turned, until he realized there was a slight lump beneath that made little sense as hair (though he was hardly one to talk). By the time he realized she was searching for a place to speak privately, she had already found a small edge to a kid’s park. Evening was pressing around him, turning the sky purple and pink, chilling the air. Any children that might have used the park had gone home for dinner.

He gazed at her. The cloak, so white around her body, was stained gray around her feet from the dirt of the road. Now that he was looking, he noticed the strange shoes, golden straps wrapped around her feet like sandals, the small fingers of her hands peeking from the very edge of the sleeves, the hood tented slightly on her left side, as if something sat on her head. He tugged at the long strands of his own hair and cleared his throat. “What do you want? He’s not here anymore… but you already know that, don’t you?”

Once again without answering, she held out her hand, palm forward, as if to order him to stop – or to touch his heart. For a second, something in her eyes flashed, the black slipping away from her sclera. The light was so blinding it left him seeing spots, even after just a split second. He blinked several times to try to clear it. The woman dropped her hand.

He didn’t know how to continue. Should he ask more questions? Reveal what he knew? Should he ask about the bird, which had followed from far away, or the scarabs, or her identity? He’d already asked and received no answer. Maybe he wouldn’t get any. Maybe he’d been right to stick with his friends, to keep away from this woman. At least he had his deck.

She held out her hand, palm up. He looked at it, at the simple lines of the scarab etched in greenish-black on her palm. Clearly, she expected him to give her something. He frowned. “What?” She pointed to his pants pocket. The one in which he kept his deck. He shifted from foot to foot. He shouldn’t give her his deck; he’d been taken advantage of enough times to learn not to trust so easily. But he looked over to the bird, now sitting on the jungle gym, and fished the cards out of his pocket, anyway. He put them in her hand, his heart tripping over itself as he did.

He watched as the woman held his deck for a moment as if weighing it, Finally, she reached up beneath her hood and plucked that something that tented it. As she pulled it free, he recognized the shape as a feather. A quill? But no. All she did was hold the feather in one hand and the deck in the other. The expression on her face didn’t change.

Finally, she handed his deck back to him and put the feather away. Her eyes, still coal black, gazed upon him with intent. Only the insects, rustling from their beds as the sky dipped into deep violets and blues, broke the silence between them. He cleared his throat. “Are you asking to duel?”

At that, she smiled. With merely a tilt of her head, she called the ba back to her. Its wings flapped almost soundlessly as it came to her shoulder once more. Though the creature kept its face tucked under one wing, it screeched its hideous call. Yugi sucked in a deep breath. “I never knew – I thought – does this have anything to do with him? Is he all right?”

She touched the top of his deck, then pulled the first card off. Mirage Ruler stared back at him.

He knew the meaning of that card. That it could return any and all monsters your opponent destroyed back to your field. For a price, of course. He wondered if the woman before him was telling him that, yes, she was here to discuss (well, sort of discuss) Atem’s resurrection, or if she was warning him that there would be a heavy cost.

He swallowed once, hard. “I thought he’d gone to the afterlife – to, um...” He thought for a moment. “The Duat?” A small flicker of a smile, and a nod. “The Duat,” he said again. “He returned there for his eternal rest.”

It was a place Ancient Egyptians went to after their death. There was nothing spoken on whether _everyone_ went there. There was every chance Yugi wouldn’t, when his own time came.

It wasn’t something he should think about. People didn’t like it when those they loved thought about death. He wasn’t racing towards it, or longing for it. But he did wish, sometimes, that there could be a day when he saw Atem again.

The woman before him replaced the card, sliding it into the middle of his deck. The next card she pulled was Blockman, and she once more showed the card to him. This one he didn’t understand at all. Blockman was a weaker monster with the ability to be sacrificed to bring several ‘tokens’ onto the field. He would often use that exact ability to summon a strong monster – to summon Gandora, the Dragon of Destruction. A creature strong enough to remove from play all monsters on the field, even god cards. He sucked in a breath, the memory of his duel with Atem making his head buzz.

The woman returned that card, as well, and took two. When she held them up, his legs wobbled. He fell to his knees, tears falling down his cheeks.

Ties of the Brethren. A spell card that sacrificed life points and a single monster in order to call two of its type to the field. And Magnet Reverse. A card that let him return a Rock or Machine-type monster back from the Graveyard.

“How?” he asked simply.

She placed the two cards back on the top of his deck and held out her hand. Not knowing what else to do, he took it.

She pulled him up as if he weighed nothing, barely changing her stance to get him to his feet. He dusted off his pants with his free hand and looked up at her, only to have her cover his eyes with her hand. He opened his mouth to protest. And flinched, as a bright light shone behind his eyelids. He thought about the flash of this same light from the woman’s eyes and stilled, an impossible thought breaking through his desperation.

There was a pervasive Ancient Egyptian myth, so well-known that many had heard of it, even if they knew next to nothing about the mythology or the culture or the history. It was something even he had been peripherally aware of, long before he’d started studying texts with his grandfather or begun working on the puzzle. The story of a man’s heart being weighed after death. The story of Anubis, the jackal-headed god, placing the deceased’s heart upon the scales and weighing them against a single feather. An ostrich feather. Of the goddess Ma’at.

He rejected the thought almost as instantly as it came, but it wouldn’t go away. Instead it nibbled on his consciousness, spoke of the stories he’d read and demanded he listen. The bright light of the woman’s focused gaze, the feather in her hair, the steady surety with which she walked. She may not be Ma’al herself, but she almost certainly acted in the ancient goddess’ favor. She had weighed his deck as if it somehow related to his soul. Though Ma’at had little to do with the Duat, and even less to do with reincarnation or rebirth, still he couldn’t help but hope that this woman may be able to use the powers of Ma’at to…

To what? Atem was dead. Even Isis could only bring her husband back for a day. If he only had a single day with Atem, only a single minute, would he truly want it?

Yes, he thought. He wanted the chance to put how he felt into words. He didn’t want it to be a silent thing in his chest, constantly wishing to come out yet having nowhere, anymore, to go. He wanted to say it. Needed to.

He didn’t know what was happening. The light behind his eyes hadn’t dimmed. Yet now, when before he had seen nothing but white, heard nothing but the sound of insects going suddenly silent, now he felt the touch of that tiny hand on his chest. It was nothing like before. Before, there had been nothing but the soft press of skin against the fabric of his shirt. Now, there was pain. As if something was tearing itself out of him, claws scraping deep into his chest and pushing out, shoving his ribs out so it could escape. He lurched as if to break away, yet he did not move. She had not clutched at him, had not trapped him or glued him down. But he could not remove himself from her touch.

He barely heard his own screaming through the ringing in his ears.

Lightning shot up and down his body. His nerves crackled, split; his blood boiled. He heard the barking of a dog, the screech of a motorcycle. Heard, through a horrible cotton in his ears that nevertheless left him sensitive to sound, someone shout his name. The pain made him blank out, turn away from time and place. It left him stripped of anything but its existence. Until, when he thought he could bear it no more, when he felt black creeping up on him from all directions, he felt the presence of something thrumming within his chest. The hideous, horrible caw of that unnatural bird shrieked in his ear, and then a strange fullness washed over him. He felt complete, whole, in a way he hadn’t since–

And then it was gone, and he was emptier than ever, and he cried until he passed out.

In his head, in his mind – _in his heart_ – he heard Atem, the other him, cry out his name. His voice cut through the darkness, as clear and sharp as glass. But there was nothing, nothing inside him, and no touch of hands against his fevered skin. There was nothing. He was alone.

* * *

 When he woke up, he was in a place he hadn’t seen since he’d last felt Atem’s presence against his soul. His own soul’s room, garnished with toys and puzzles and games, now bore the touch of what he’d lost. Several of the toys had been put away or placed on shelves, no longer strewn wildly about the floor. Several pictures sat heavy upon the walls, each depicting rooms in Atem’s own soul. He walked to one, backlit in greens and blacks, and touched the frame reverently. His gaze traced the stairwell that he knew led to the main hall of Atem’s soul room. His fingers curled, short nails scraping against the wood of the frame. He looked around, used to seeing the door to his soul open, the familiar hallway leading to the connecting door, always closed, yet eventually unlocked to admit Yugi entrance if he so chose.

There was nothing. Though his door was open, it led nowhere. He turned away, unable to bear the sight.

Why was he back here? He hadn’t been able to return without the puzzle. He turned away from the picture frame and looked around. Could there be a clue somewhere in here? Some sort of hint as to why he’d returned, or how to go back?

He shivered at the thought of returning. He’d been in so much pain. So much that his body had begun to get numbed to it, as if it didn’t matter that he was being blown apart from the outside in. He’d accepted the blackness of unconscious simply because it had been better than being awake – alive – anymore.

He put a hand to his mouth and collapsed to the floor. Was… was he dead?

The sound of flapping wings made him pause. He looked up at the sound of that horrible caw. When he turned, he saw the familiar shape land on his toy chest. Yet it was nothing more than light. Bright light, almost blue in its whiteness. The shape seemed to be turned to him, as much as light could turn to anything. It screeched again, flapped its wings – what would be wings if there was substance to the creature. Though there were no eyes, he felt like it was staring straight through him. Into him. As if it knew him.

The door to his soul slammed closed. A single symbol, that of a hieroglyphic feather, glowed on the door. Even though he could already guess the futility of it, still he stood and tried to open the door.

Nothing. He was locked in. Of course.

He looked around again. He couldn’t get locked up in his own soul. There had to be a way out.

The toys and puzzles in his room had altered slightly; there was a stuffed animal on his soul’s bed, one of Marshmallon, and an intricately carved statue of the Dark Magician lying beside his toy chest. Above the head of the bed was a painting of the sky during evening – the very time it had been when the Ma’at look-alike had met with him.

He turned to the painting, ready to flip it over to see if there was a message on the back or something, only to see a tiny scroll, as those placed on the feet of pigeons, curled upon the far corner of the frame. He plucked it out and unfolded it.

The very sight of the familiar design made him burst into tears. To have Atem’s name engraved, even in such small script – how could it be anything less than love? To be so branded, to have the only writing in the room be of Atem.

And, indeed, the rest of the small scroll read out the story of the god Atum – also known as Atem. The god who created the world, who created the gods, who is known as the evening sun. He looked up at the painting then, his gaze watery but focused. Atem. Of all the symbols and pictures he could have chosen to represent his lost partner, he had chosen a giant picture of the sun, blazing red and orange across the water below it. He leaned back, got comfortable, and let himself refamiliarize himself with the stories.

Atem, as he was remembered in Egyptian lore, was the first god, created from the primeval waters. He created all things, even human beings, and was said to be “both pre-existence and post-existence.” He brought all life, and would eventually see the end of the world and assist in its cleansing in order to begin a new cycle.

Atem was said to have lain with his shadow to produce said gods and goddesses.

Yugi, once he’d found Atem’s name online, had scoured every text he could find to learn more about his friend. All he’d found, however, were more and more insane stories, ones so far removed from the reality of what had happened with Zorn as to be barely recognizable. But even he could see how Atem was remembered for saving the world, for giving humanity – and the planet itself – the chance to survive, and thrive. He knew the mention of the evening sun brought about the thought of a man who had once known darkness and instead brought light to what many thought was the end of days.

And, perhaps, Yugi thought, wishing it to be true, the shadow people spoke about might have even been himself.

They had never been like that with one another. Why bother when your souls were matched together? What was the point of physical closeness when you had such a link between you? Yet he had no doubt that, had they not been joined in soul, they would have been joined in body. They would have joined in any way possible. He couldn’t imagine it any other way.

At the bottom of the scroll sat the name of Atem as it had been written through the ages, the original, normal writing gone, as he was remembered as a god instead of a man. He traced his fingers over the different script, his chest aching with something indefinable. He wished the world could remember the man and not the god. He wished something remained that was just Atem, without artifice. He wished the world could remember him as he could.

When he breathed in, the air trembled in his lungs. His fingers shook around the edges of the tiny scroll. He fought back tears, unwilling to fall to them again. Instead he sniffed and cleared them from his eyes, carefully rolling up the tiny papyrus and placing it back where he’d found it.

Little else remained to be found in the room, but he searched, anyway. Decks of cards, 3-D puzzles, Rubik’s cubes and board games and bent nails puzzles and dominoes and kid’s shape puzzles, crosswords and word searches and sudoku, chess and checkers and go and shogi. But despite his search, he found nothing else new or changed. The toy chest held contraption after contraption, each made to entice his mind and play. But though he gently waved away the bird – knocking over something in the process – he found nothing new or useful within. He finally sat down, brow furrowed, and tried to think. If nothing else had changed, if he truly had nothing that could get him out, then he would have to find another way.

The bird returned to its perch, shifting between the chest and the wall to pick up what Yugi had dropped before getting comfortable on the wooden lid and gently dropping the item at its feet. It was a long chisel, as ancient a tool as the bird that had carried it. Yugi moved toward the glowing bird, unsure if it had a working beak or if it would be willing to use it. The thing just watched him. Could this thing really be a part of Atem’s soul? Yugi had thought his friend’s soul had properly moved on. Then again, it was warned that the ka and ba separated from the body at death, and in doing so split in different directions. The Ancient Egyptians would even leave food and items to lure the ba down to the Duat to meet with the ka in the afterlife.

He took the chisel and looked at the symbol on the door. It was sometimes used as a symbol for Ma’at, but it was more often only a piece of her name. A variation of the symbol was used for the rough equivalent of the letters “i” or “e,” even some forms of “a.”

He frowned and stood.

It was a puzzle.

He stared down at his new tool, rubbing his thumb carefully along the chisel’s edge. This would be permanent. Only one chance, and if he got it wrong… would he be trapped in his own soul forever? Would he remain helpless, alone in a coma, leaving his friends and grandpa behind to worry over his unmoving body? How would Atem feel, knowing Yugi had fallen to the first real threat he’d faced in the pharaoh’s absence?

He gripped the chisel tight and marched to the door. He wouldn’t let it happen. He would get out.

He’d been given all the clues he needed to figure it out. With the obvious changes in the room, it was clear the puzzle’s answer couldn’t be his own name. The room practically screamed his desire for Atem. But it couldn’t be his name, either, not either of the spelling options – not only would it be too obvious, as the man’s name sat in the scroll itself, offering a tempting cheat code for those who believed it to be the sort of solution that would be handed to him. He knew better. This was a test, and one wasn’t allowed to cheat on tests.

Besides, this was Ma’at, either the goddess herself or a disciple. And Ma’at was the goddess of harmony and order, but also the goddess of justice, morality – and truth. The woman had forty-two codes of virtue, and though they often differed from person to person, one common code was simple: “I am not a man of deceit.”

So what was the truth she was looking for? He looked around and could guess easily enough. The truth of his soul. Perhaps the truth of Atem’s, as well.

The word had to be something he already knew. As he wasn’t allowed to cheat, so could she not play unfairly. It made him think he should perhaps write out a word he knew in the hieroglyphic alphabet. “Yami” would work. So would “kage.” But he dismissed that idea, as well. This wasn’t about him. It wasn’t about his world or his expectations. It was about Atem’s world. His time period, and his people.

When Atem had left, it had been to join with his long-lost friends and family in the Duat. It was so he could fulfill his rightful role as their pharaoh, all while achieving the rest that had been so dearly earned. Modern Japan had no place there, and neither did Yugi. No matter the fact that Atem was as much Yugi’s pharaoh as their. No matter the fact that Yugi loved Atem so much it sometimes hurt to breathe.

The problem was that he hadn’t gotten very far in his studies with hieroglyphics. It made him wonder if perhaps this puzzle wasn’t meant for him, but for the person no longer residing within him. But no. If he started thinking this puzzle was unfair, then he would start thinking there was no way to win. And neither he nor Atem believed in such scenarios.

He looked at the painting. That was just another allegory for Atem’s name. Come to think of it, so was Yami, and even the idea of kage – of them being each other’s shadows, each being one another’s other half.

He would think it to be the Egyptian word for soul, but the spelling of ba, ka, akh, and the like required no feather hieroglyph.

He touched the door, just beside the carved symbol, and thought. Perhaps it wasn’t as simple as the right word. Perhaps it was a play on words, a word within a word. He leaned his head on the door, closed his eyes. It could be a pun. Language was filled with puns and hidden meanings, parts of words taken from other words, phrases twisted into a new meaning. If the answer was soul, then perhaps the word had something to do with ka or ba or akh, and was only altered slightly from these original meanings. In Egyptian, the word shadow had its own symbol, that of a fan, and had no need of the feather at all, even though a person’s shadow was believed to carry a piece of their soul. The word darkness, on the other hand, while not directly relating to the idea of a soul, was roughly translated to “aukhekh.” It had a feather in its name, but was far enough from the words for the parts of a man’s soul that it lost its efficacy. It wasn’t the answer.

He stopped then, thinking about it. For all that Atem had always called himself Yugi’s darkness, he’d also called Yugi his light. And Atem was a sun god, though he reigned predominantly over the evening sky.

The word for light was “aakh.”

Aakh. Just enough of a change, just enough of a meaning. It fit.

He reached up and put chisel to stone.

The bird cawed.

He paused. Hesitated. Stilled, his breath catching in his throat. Slowly, his gaze rose to the animal still resting on his toy chest. How many times had he seen or heard that bird? How many times had he seen it do the woman’s bidding? Whether it was Atem’s ba or not, whether it was a normal bird or not, it was clearly a message. The bird itself had managed to enter his soul room – and not only enter it, but bring a tool with it. He was connected to it, as it was connected to him.

Souls. They shared souls.

He’d let his fear of failure blind him from proper thought. He’d let his belief that he lacked enough knowledge stop him from remembering that which had made his eyes burn as he’d read the pages of Budge’s hieroglyph dictionary, his fingers shakily dabbing at the teardrops lest they stain the old pages. The word that, as soon as he’d read it, had become irrevocably linked with Atem, and how Yugi felt about him.

The word would have ba in it, not akh or ka. And he knew exactly which word it was.

Without hesitation, he carved the shape of a stork-like bird, its beak and legs long, its body stretched thin, to the right of the feather. He barely managed to scratch in the final line before the door flashed light. He covered his eyes. The door clicked open. Behind him, the ba screeched. The flutter of wings warned him, and he lowered his arm just in time to see the bird fly off.

“Wait!” He had no idea where the woman who’s attacked him was, or why she’d sent him the message she had. Why give him false hope? Why come to him at all? Why lock him in his own soul room – and _how, how had she done that?_ – and leave a puzzle about Atem for him to solve in order to gain his freedom?

There was a hallway where there hadn’t been before. He ran down it, chasing after the bird as it flew, a shot of white across a dark hallway. But as he passed, torches lit the walls. Walls of stone, so very familiar to him. His heart picked up, pounded until it lodged in his throat. He could hardly breathe through it, could hardly believe what he was seeing. An endless expanse of corridor, stone smooth like a pyramid on either side of him. And then, just ahead, a door. A beautiful, gorgeous double door, with the Eye of Horus carved into the golden stone. The door opened as the bird flew near, and finally he was there, racing through, his heart so thick in his throat he felt choked.

The room he entered was white, so white he thought for a moment he’d been truly blinded by the light from the door, or that perhaps the bird had turned around and attacked him. But even as he blinked against the bright walls of the room, he watched the bird fly straight through, past the figure of the woman, still cloaked tightly within her white robes, and toward a very familiar figure. A figure in gold, a torc around his neck and armbands beneath his triceps and skin far more tanned than Yugi had once been used to seeing. The man stared at the bird with wide eyes, one hand lifting almost of its own volition to allow the being to rest on his finger. The woman watched it with a smile.

“Pharaoh.” Yugi jumped at the sound of Kaiba’s voice. He turned to see Kaiba’s tanned twin walk forward, his gaze on the bird, as well. “Is that your ba? Has it finally returned to you?”

“It has,” Atem said.

Yugi couldn’t help it. He burst into tears all over again.

He made a sound. Some sort of choked cry, more like a whimper to his own ears. It made both Atem and Seto turn to him. Atem’s eyes widened. “Yugi?” His mouth gaped open, and his gaze flashed to the woman. “Tell me he has not–”

 _No._ A woman’s voice, echoing within Yugi’s own mind. But though it sounded like little more than a whisper, it made his head pound. He clutched it and winced. Atem, Yugi saw, gritted his teeth, but bore whatever pain he himself may have felt. _He lives._

A short second passed, in which Yugi struggled with the pain now ricocheting up and down his head and Atem visibly shook with the effort to control himself. “When why is he here? This is the land of the dead. Yugi...” Atem looked at him, and his body slumped a bit. “Yugi should not be here yet.”

Yet? Did that mean there was hope that he, too, could enter the Duat after death? Was it even remotely possible?

Yugi turned to the woman himself, his own questions burning on his tongue. “Why did you lock me in my soul room? And how? How is this–” He waved his hand around to indicate the room he stood in “–possible?”

Atem turned sharply to Yugi once more. “What?”

The woman raised her hands, ordering peace without a word. He looked upon the carving of the scarab upon her right palm and shivered anew. _Your souls cannot be parted now_. They both suffered hearing her words. Set, oddly enough, seemed uncomfortable, but not as deeply affected. The man went to stand by his pharaoh, his eyes narrowed as he watched the woman. _It is too late. Too out of balance_.

Yugi clutched his head and hunched down, trying to evade something that lay within his mind. Atem made an aborted move to go to him, but was stopped by Seto. Minutely, the ancient Egyptian shook his head.

“If you can speak,” Yugi rasped, “why didn’t you before?”

 _You are forged in chaos. I exist to bring order to such, by heal or harm._ He keened at the ringing pressing against his skull, the pain nearly matching the horrible feel of electricity pouring through his body. His legs swayed for a second before he managed to get them firmly beneath him once more. She gave him a few moments, until he no longer felt like his head was going to explode, then said, _if I had spoken then, you would have been more than visitor here._

He paled at the thought. “Then why electrocute me?”

“ _What?”_ The fury in Atem’s voice was like healing to Yugi. Every movement, every sound, every nuance felt like a cool balm to his soul. He felt like he was being shored up, the tatters of himself coming slowly back together. “You hurt Yugi?” He stormed past Seto, ignoring the man’s hiss of warning. His cape, sitting idle on his shoulders moments before, flared behind him. Yugi’s breath caught at the sign of Atem’s anger. He looked so alive. “Goddess or not, I will not forgive you this trespass.”

Yugi saw the woman’s lips lift into a small smile, as if amused by the proceedings. Yugi stepped a bit closer, finally managed to tear his gaze from Atem enough to think. “So you’re really Ma’at.”

His words made Atem pause. The man stared wide-eyed at Yugi. Ma’at was the one who chose to answer. _I am_.

He thought about the pain he’d suffered since meeting her. A week of being haunted by a supposed apparition, of being so paranoid he’d flinched at the sight of anything white flapping in a breeze. The hope that had nearly killed him, even before the electrocution that had burned his nerve endings until he’d wanted to die to make it stop. Locked in his soul room, needing to solve a puzzle to free himself. And then the horrible, pounding headache he was graced with now.

He smiled. “Thank you.”

Atem growled. “Yugi!”

He looked at the man, unable to dim his grin, unable to keep the tears from his eyes. “I got my wish. I got to see you again.” Before he lost his chance, he raced to Atem’s side. Just in front of him, he was amazed by how his heart reacted at being near the man once more. He’d thought it would burst out of his chest, would nearly hurt him in its thunder. Instead it calmed, feeling right in a way it hadn’t in months. He grabbed Atem’s hand. It felt warm. No matter what he did, he couldn’t stop crying. And yet he’d never been happier. “I love you.”

Atem stared down at him, apparently stunned speechless. But it didn’t matter. Yugi had learned better than to let himself live with regrets. He didn’t want his feelings to be unspoken. There was power to making them heard. And he never wanted Atem in a position to doubt.

He turned to Ma’at, though he couldn’t yet bring himself to let go of Atem’s hand. “I’m ready to go back now.”

The woman merely smiled at him. _You misunderstand_. She moved, not toward him, as he’d been expecting, but toward the open door. Slowly, she shut it. Atem tensed as she placed her hand on the seam of the doors.

“You can’t!” he said. Those warm fingers clutched Yugi’s tight. “He’s not dead. It is not his time for judgment!”

Light flashed from her hand, from her eyes. Just before Yugi turned away, he could have sworn he saw the forms of wings along her arms. It took several moments, but then the light faded, and he looked back, blinking rapidly, to see a different set of hieroglyphs where before the Eye of Horus had stood, reflecting the eye on the opposite side of the door. He tried to read it, but though he recognized a few of the symbols, he hadn’t yet memorized every hieroglyph, and one, something that looked to him like a sombrero, stumped him.

Atem, however, seemed to recognize it, because he sucked in a sharp breath.

Yugi looked from the word to Atem, then back. His heart finally began to pound. Whatever that word was, it was Atem’s word for him. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. He looked at the goddess. “Why are you doing all this? What does it mean?”

 _The pharaoh’s battle saved the world,_ the goddess told him, told them all, with the tone of voice that said _but_. Seto’s hand rested on his sword. Atem merely released one of Yugi’s hands, not going so far as to reach for his weapon, but readying himself, anyway. _But the world was left out of balance._

As painful as it still was to hear her speak inside his mind, he thought he might be growing accustomed to it. It didn’t nearly send him to his knees anymore. “I know you’re the goddess of order,” Yugi said, trying to put the pieces together and failing. “But wouldn’t that mean you assisted in hiding Atem’s name?” Seto hissed at the informality Yugi showed, but Atem held up a hand, and his minister held his tongue. “What would that have to do with me? Or this?”

 _The pharaoh’s ka was not the same as it had been._ _The ka and ba were separate in more than space._ She waited a few moments for them to get over the pain of her voice, then to adjust to the words themselves. Yugi blanched as the picture became clear. _Even if they found each other, they would not meld as they should_.

That was right. When a person died, they weren’t exactly supposed to undergo any major life changes – after all, they were dead. How could a person’s personality change if they held no influence with others? If no one changed them, and they changed no one?

But Atem, in locking himself away in the puzzle, met Yugi. Together, they changed one another in ways that would never have been possible if they’d never met. Yugi found the strength within him to stand with his friends, to face down his enemies, to walk straight into his future. And Atem, in turn, had found himself growing softer, gentler, his need to fight alone varnished into love and friendship so strong those he loved missed him with every day that passed.

His ba, on the other hand, had traveled alone for millennia. It would have remained unchanged, if not even tortured as Atem’s ka had been from three thousand years of loneliness. She was right. They wouldn’t have melded well. “But how did I help with that?”

Ma’at slid her way back to his side, either ignorant or uncaring of Atem’s visible tension. _It needed to meet you, too_. She touched his cheek. He shivered. _Your akhs are one now. His. Yours. I could not part them if I wished to. The harmony is absolute._

His head ached with so many words, throbbed with every syllable she uttered. Still, he thought he understood. “We’re… linked? Our souls are linked?”

_One is dead. The other lives. The separation will tear your akhs apart._

That, more than anything, gained her Atem’s full attention. “That cannot be. Yugi looks fine!”

 _And he is. The emptiness he has struggled to ignore is now gone._ Ma’at took off her scarab broach, only to hand it to the pharaoh. Numbly, Atem accepted. _He accepted the transition to the Duat, and has shown the strength of his desire, and so can make the journey now within his soul._ She turned to Yugi, who held one hand on his head and winced. The ringing in his ears was so loud it nearly drowned her out. _You may now visit him whenever you wish. I suggest you do so often, or else that emptiness will return._

Yugi gasped. His mind clicked each puzzle piece in place. The electricity he’d suffered through – it had been Ma’at preparing a mortal, living body, the khat, for travel to a domain it was never meant to set foot in: the afterlife. And then, as all heroes must when traveling to the land of the dead, he had to prove his will in order to gain that which was supposed to be permanently lost to the realm of the living.

In other words, like Orpheus, he had gone to get his beloved from the underworld. But, unlike Orpheus, he had actually succeeded.

Yes, Atem was still dead. Yes, he was still in the Duat, and likely to be sometimes too distant for Yugi to reach. There may be times when one of them was too busy, or times when they kept missing the chance to speak to each other. But hadn’t he just told himself that he and his friends would still be close, no matter how far apart they traveled in their careers? His soul could go to Atem’s. From the marking Ma’at had placed on Atem’s door – down a long hallway that had to be nothing less than the journey from life into death, and death into life – Atem could come visit him, too.

Atem was no longer lost to him.

“This makes no sense,” Atem said. “There were others who shared souls. They are not so bound.”

_They did not step foot within each others’ souls. They did not change the others’ hearts._

It came with a price, of course it did. Their souls were tethered, bound to one another. But apparently the balance of the world demanded they remain together in some fashion. But why? “Why are we so important?” he asked.

The goddess stared at him. He saw another sudden, bright flash of light from her eyes, the black of the sclera sliding to reveal a white so luminous even that small flash threatened to blind him. She quickly hid her true gaze again. _The slightest imbalance may tip the scales,_ she said, her whispering voice still loud enough to bang like kettle drums, but no longer making him feel like his brain was trying to bust out of his skull. _You, of all people, should know the value of an individual_.

Yugi looked at Atem, eyes wide enough to pop out of their sockets. Did this really mean he could see Atem whenever he desired? That he could once more find himself inside the room of his soul and trace the path down here, to where Atem rested? How did that even work? How could he see where Atem stood, with his friends, when the man wasn’t deliberately in his own soul room?

But of course he knew the answer to that. It was because Atem was no longer trapped within his mortal body. He was his soul, nothing more.

Yugi didn’t need anything more.

“Thank you,” he said again, trying to pour all the gratitude he could into the words. “Thank you.” He thought of something. “This means my friends won’t see or speak with him, will they?”

 _You will be their messenger._ The woman turned to the door. _May your hearts never tip the scales._

She vanished. Just like that.

“Insane,” Seto muttered, and finally relaxed from his guarded stance. He looked from Atem to Yugi and back. “I suppose I’ll take my leave then, shall I?”

“It’s appreciated, Seto,” Atem said, but his gaze never left Yugi’s. Atem’s fingers carded through his hair. Yugi strained to see wher Seto went, but the underworld faded into white as it stretched far beyond him, and he couldn’t see more. He likely wasn’t meant to see more. “Yugi,” Atem said. His voice was quiet. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

Yugi nuzzled the hand until it rested around his cheek. “Or me you,” he said. “She’s right, though. I’ve felt empty without you. I thought it was just me trying to get used to… to the space.” He shrugged, not knowing the right words for the idea of their souls conjoined, or how it had felt to traverse Atem’s halls. “I’ve missed you.”

“And I you,” Atem said quietly. Yugi leaned further into Atem’s hand, and they stood content for several moments, simply soaking up each others’ presence. “You needn’t have confessed, my other half. I’ve always known you care for me as I do you.”

Yugi hummed. “I always regretted never telling you, though. Being away from you showed me how important the words were.”

Atem’s hand rose to the back of his head and pulled him close. They were touching, chest to chest. It was a different sensation than flesh on flesh, more like a suffusing warmth, a rush of emotions, than the concrete press of bodies. “Then. I love you, Yugi.”

Yugi closed his eyes. He had never thought to have another moment like this. Those simple moments they’d taken for granted when they’d been together. The moments that had become too desperate, too cognizant of the future, to be what they’d once been. He sighed. “Speaking of words,” he said. “I don’t know that one yet.” He pulled away just enough to gesture toward the doors, still closed together to form the intricate pattern of Egyptian lettering. “What is it?”

He felt the affection in Atem’s touch and could imagine the soft, slightly possessive smile on the pharaoh’s face, the one that said he saw all of Yugi and wanted to continue to see. “Hetepu. It means peace, joy. Contentment.” Atem leaned down until their foreheads touched. “And you? What did you carve into your door?”

“Aba,” Yugi said, and felt the bright burst of elation that swept through his other half. “You know what it means,” he said, trying not to blush.

“Tell me,” Atem said.

Though it couldn’t be real, he imagined he could feel the pharaoh’s breath on his face. He leaned in and dared press his lips against Atem’s, an unnecessary physical contact when their souls were joined. “To make strong and courageous,” he said, breathless at his daring. Breathless at the knowledge of who gave it to him. “To endow with soul and strength.”

Atem pulled him in for a bruising kiss.

* * *

When Yugi opened his eyes, it was to find Anzu and his grandpa leaning over his bedside, the starchy sheets enough to tell him he was in a hospital before he even looked around and saw the blue curtain around his bed.

Despite the two people hovering, the first to make note of his return to consciousness was Jounouchi, who had been pacing in front of Honda with his arms crossed tight around his chest. “Yugi! You’re awake! How are you? Are you all right? I’m so sorry I left you alone; it’ll never happen again!”

Anzu slapped him. “Shut up! He just woke up; let him breathe!”

Seto Kaiba, of all people, snorted. Yugi couldn’t see him through the barrier of the curtain, but he was certain the sound had been him.

“You could always come in, Kaiba,” Honda said lightly. “It’s no shame to admit I found Yugi on my motorcycle faster than your money could divine his presence.”

Yugi laughed. It almost hurt, like a great pressure had been eased off of him, and his weakened body had yet to recover from it. It stopped all of his friends cold. “I found him,” he told them. His eyes shone with tears, but this time he pushed them back. Here, there should be only joy, not worry or concern. “That woman. She gave me a way to speak with Atem.”

“What? Are you serious?”

Anzu gripped his hand. “If that’s true – oh, Yugi...”

His grandpa just smiled. “Perhaps,” he said, “you should have more faith.”

Yugi remembered the words from when he’d nearly given up on completing the puzzle. The memory, the hopelessness he’d felt then, and the sudden knowledge that he’d been dangerously close to that same precipice for weeks, made him laugh again. Anzu hugged him so tight he nearly couldn’t breathe. Jounouchi nearly cried with relief. “You’re right,” he said, conceding once more to another enigmatically wise moment from his usually lecherous grandpa. “I really should have more faith.”

He could feel the link to Atem, even awake as he was. A small surge of comfort trickled through the newly formed bond, and he smiled.

 _Thank you_. It didn’t matter who he was thanking. His gratitude was meant for them all.


End file.
